This is a question that came up a few blogs ago during a conversation about the proper administrations of estim and biofeedback, and unfortunately, it’s a dilemma that is extremely common for patients dealing with pelvic pain.

The reason for this is that when it comes to treating pelvic pain, until recently, there was very little education available for PTs. It’s not a subject that is covered in PT school, so PTs with an interest in treating the pelvic pain population are required to get post-graduate

education. The catch-22 is that until the last five or six years, the only post-graduate training in pelvic floor treatment was focused on incontinence, which is a very different animal than pelvic pain.

Therefore, anyone interested in treating pelvic pain had to find a PT who was having success, and set up a mentorship with her.

The good news is that now there are more educational opportunities available for PTs who want to learn how to successfully treat the pelvic pain population. But that said, there is still a huge learning curve to make up for.

Plus when patients turn to the Internet for information, they often come across forums where folks with the same health issue are sharing information. As a result, patients with pelvic pain find out about techniques and treatment methods that others are having success with, which their own PTs may not be aware of.

Connective tissue manipulation and the proper uses of estim and biofeedback are two topics that patients are often more informed about than their PTs. But, trigger point release and even the general fact that you have to do internal work to treat pelvic pain are topics that can also fall into this category.

So that takes us back to our question: How do you tackle a situation where you know more than your PT about good pelvic floor treatment?